I write on Liberation Day, just hours before our president unveils new tariffs which will either unleash a new Golden Age or splat the United States against the global economy’s windshield. While I cannot say with total certainty which of the two scenarios is likelier, I’m inclined to believe actual economists over Stephen Miller—but that’s just because I tend to value the opinions of people who know what they’re talking about.
Beyond freeing this country from the world’s financial markets, Liberation Day also serves to mark the unfettered behavior of this new administration more broadly. Free from standards, free from precedents, free from decency—I could go on. Over the weekend, President Trump told NBC News he was looking into serving a third term; in the same interview, he threatened Iran’s leaders with “bombing the likes of which they’ve never seen before” if they did not agree to a new nuclear deal. (No mention of the fact that we had a nuclear deal with Iran until Trump pulled us out.)
Vice President J.D. Vance, meanwhile, is picking Twitter fights over details emerging about the immigrants sent, without due process, to hard labor prisons in El Salvador—a barber, a young man with a tattoo honoring his autistic brother, and a migrant specifically forbidden from being repatriated to El Salvador because doing so would likely result in his persecution or torture. In this last case, the administration has acknowledged the error but refuses to lift a finger to amend it.
ADVERTISEMENT
I’m just plucking a handful of headlines off the top of my head to illustrate an obvious point: any of these developments would have been unthinkable in any other administration. For MAGA stalwarts, that fact is surely a good thing. For the rest of us, the frenetic, sloppy pace of it all calls to mind one of the writer Umberto Eco’s tenets of fascism: “The cult of action for action’s sake.” Not that I would ever claim that meeting a single one of Eco’s 14 tenets for fascism makes this administration fascist. That would be unfair.
Trump’s White House meets 12 of the 14.
It’s almost cliché to label what we’re witnessing “fascist” because the word has been denuded of its shock value. But fascism is what we’re witnessing. Don’t believe me? Prominent scholars of fascism are calling it such, and three of those scholars—Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley and Marci Shore—have, in recent weeks, all traded their professorships in the United States for positions in Canada.
Still, the courts have continued to rule against Trump at a staggering pace. Dozens of injunctions have been issued across the country, leading to Republicans calling for “reform,” the impeachment of judges and even the elimination of certain district courts all together. How all this will play out is anybody’s guess, but my estimation is that things are going to get ugly sooner rather than later. Because why wouldn’t they?
Which brings me to a question and a warning: Less than two months in, we’re already inured to the whipsaw pace of executive orders, court battles, congressional haplessness, human rights abuses, market queasiness and international condemnation. The question is whether our familiarity with Trumpian excesses will settle into complacency, or whether the growing opposition will coalesce into a national protest movement.
It’s tempting to assume the administration doesn’t have a plan to deal with organized resistance. I suspect this is a mistake. Moreover, I suspect they want to provoke opposition, including violent opposition. Doing so, would give Trump the fig leaf he needs to invoke emergency powers, further consolidate authority and, possibly, suspend elections. Yes, I know the Constitution does not allow for the suspension of federal elections but, again, fealty to our founding document does not seem high on this administration’s to-do list.
The administration, I believe, is counting on the opposition to grow in strength. They welcome our rage because they’re hopeful it will lead to violence. They want violence. Don’t give it to them. Do the “Electric Slide” instead. Decorate Teslas with slices of American cheese, not swastikas. Be absurd. Be funny. Be joyful in your defiance. I write to you on Liberation Day, but liberation from this tyrant remains distant. In the meanwhile, be smart. Have a laugh. Stay safe.
